Perhaps
there is none who is not fond of travel, for it refreshes you by taking you to
new places, new environs, and new people. Especially when you feel you are
caught in a grind, stuck in a rut. We should of course, plan our tour/travel
well, lest it should turn into a hole of travail. It doesn’t matter whether you
choose to visit a few or many places, but you should perform your itinerary at
leisure – so as to enjoy every bit and moment of it, relax and get
reinvigorated, with no tearing hurry that makes you naggingly edgy. A tour
packed with too many places in a limited time would be weary and monotonous and
defeats its very spirit and purpose. Real travel is a happy translocation of
both body and mind in unison.

While
the travels of adventurers is an entirely different game, those of lesser
mortals including me is just for fun and some breezy change for the better.

The
memories of life’s travel have their different identities. Some of them may
have seen the light of day having been shared either orally or in published form.
Some of them lie dormant layer upon layer, and continue so, unless a fortuitous
chance to invoke and tap them comes up.

Over
to my childhood at my home town Kaikalur – a Taluk headquarters, on the perimeter
of the Kolleru Lake in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. Once a
relatively backward Taluk, it is now vibrant with its agriculture and
aquaculture. During every vacation my cousins from different places used to
visit us, and we had all the fun, frolic and mischief the lads or lasses at the
formative age would have. However, I missed out on, and ardently longed for
something. Though they would invite me for a return visit, it never happened
until a very later date, and that too sparsely. My father – the de facto paterfamilias
– with his customised package of discipline and values, wouldn’t let me go out
even in the small laid-back town, not to speak of venturing to other towns my
cousins hailed from. Of course, he took me on his classy bicycle for a much
awaited long ride of 10 kms to a pilgrim hamlet – Bhogeswaram, on a Maha Shiva
Ratri day. My eyes were filled with the wonder of everything around – people in
hordes making it by every means of travel, the variety of stalls – of eats and
playthings – and the amusement fixtures. The lake at the Bhogeswara temple
would send out three big bubbles in succession whenever you chanted ‘Hara Hara’
aloud, in devotion. But at that time, only one bubble was active. Local history
had it that the other two had disappeared because of some sacrilege at the spot
some time ago.

However,
a few years later, I was allowed the luxury of travelling to the city of
Vijayawada, where some of my cousins lived. Though it was mid-summer, we the
children would sneak out and wander about the roads even when the sun blazed
over the top of our heads – in that city, at that time called Bezawada, and
facetiously nicknamed ‘Blaze-wada’ because of its dauntingly hot weather. We
would walk around miles and miles. It didn’t affect us; we carried no hat or
umbrella; not even a bottle of water. Whenever we felt thirsty, we would draw
water from the municipal taps or walk into a hotel and grab a glass of water
from an unoccupied table.

The
landscape of Vijayawada was fascinating with the Krishna River, the various
canals that branched out of it and ran through the town, and on its soil stood
proud and mighty hills – Mogalrajapuram Hill, Gandhi Hill and the Indra Kiladri.
It is on the last that the famous temple of Kanaka Durga is located; and it’s
atop this hill that the Mahabharata hero Arjuna is said to have performed his
penance and obtained the Pasupata Astra from Lord Shiva. Every morning, the
hills beckoned us, and we would decide to walk up to and climb to the summit of
the Indra Kiladri. But daily, we were stopped by a wide and deep canal; we
weren’t savvy enough yet how to cross it. The next day we would repeat the
exercise, hoping credulously, that the canal wouldn’t be there to snigger at and
stall us. It was only after a year or two, my cousin and I succeeded in
reaching the top of the Indra Kiladri; and felt on cloud nine. Like Edmund
Hillary and Tensing who trekked up and stepped onto Mt Everest and about whom
we were perhaps yet to learn. I was
about ten years old at that time. The fascination for the hilly eminences has continued
and remains as intense even now. As I grew up, it pained me to see that many a
hill was indiscriminately ravaged and razed down for man’s greedy construction
projects or was encroached upon by all and sundry – in most cases on political
instigation or collusion. We can, with our ultra-modern technology, easily
level down a majestic hill. But can a million of us, with the aid of the same technology,
build a hill? The nostalgia for the hills made me pen a few poems, and here are
is one of my unpublished ones, “The hill that beckoned” –

The hill that beckoned

There
was that high hill yonder

At
which I looked with wonder.

Hills
are a thrill to climb;

So I
started out to reach it.

A wide
and deep brook came in the way

With no
bridge or barge in sight;

So I
walked back home

With a
feeling of emptiness.

The
next morning when I got up

With
renewed hope; I sojourned afresh

Wishing
that the stream wouldn’t block.

But lo!
It still was there and with greater force.

This
hill drill went on day by day

With a
naughty nought

And an
unravelling knot… …

Then
years after, when I was back –

Having
grown up from childhood,

And my
studies far away elsewhere –

The
hill view was found eclipsed

By a
close maze of high-rise buildings.

Nostalgic
gusto charged into me;

And on
a dawn I began my hill-ward journey.

I
walked along the roads,

With an
eerie frisson.

The
stream grew still wider;

However
it was kinder

With a
bridge over

As its
waistband.

Eureka!

First
time cross I did

Successfully

And
felt as if I’d won an Olympic medal.

I
continued on…and on…

Did I
lose my way?

No hill
in sight…

At a
landmark, on my enquiry

This
fell into my deafened ears:

“The
hill was long ago razed to the ground

To make
room for skyscrapers to abound.”

Thus
was how my nostalgic hill thrill

Came to
be filled with a spiny chill.

In
course of time, I joined the State Bank of India as a clerk-typist. My first
posting was at Addanki, a historical town nestling on the banks of a rivulet –
Gundlakamma. Geographically, it was located in the Prakasam District of Andhra
Pradesh, and bank jurisdiction-wise in Hyderabad Circle. The sleepy town and
its surroundings were fertile, irrigated by the right canal of Nagarjuna Sagar.
Every two years the branches were subjected to a rigorous internal audit which
rated their overall performance. The auditor was a senior official from within
the bank but from another administrative Circle. He was held in much awe; the
branch manager and staff knew that he could either make or mar the image of the
branch. Rather crucially positioned in the branch functioning by the respective
managers, I had opportunities of interacting with the auditor who came from a
different background, from a different state, from a different language, and
visited a maze of places as part of his duties. It sparked off a kind of
wanderlust in me and an interest to think of ways of getting transferred to
another Circle. But transfers, especially inter-Circle ones, were extremely
difficult and very rare at that time. This was when I was at my hometown, on a
request transfer from Addanki. Around that time, we received a circular from
the bank’s Central Office calling for options to work as audit assistant in
Sikkim on deputation. It was a godsend, and I applied for it, and began to float
on air, lost in waves of euphoric dreams. …

And
here is how I eventually recorded my Sikkim experiences:

“I glide along into the land of magic

To conjure up
memories nostalgic.

Refreshed with
clean scenes and golden waters

I play the
administrative trotter.

I do my bit to
nourish the baby

And sing aright
ditty after ditty

Witnessed by the
Kanchenjunga ridges

As much water
flows under its bridges.”

This was written, let me say, without ever visiting Sikkim; I have never
visited that idyllic cradle of Himalayan land. I wasn’t selected for the Sikkim
deputation; obviously the competition was much too stiff; maybe those from West
Bengal or Bihar were selected. In fact,
I didn’t receive any yes or no from the bank.

But
then why did I pen the above poem at all? Well, I have edited quite a few
books, and one of them is Memoirs &
Musings of an IAS Officer (Menaka Prakashan, Pune, 2013) by KV Natarajan,
IAS (Retd) who served as Chief Secretary (1991-1992) and Vigilance Commissioner
(1993-1998) of Andhra Pradesh.

While
editing the book, I suggested to Natarajan that I would preface each chapter
with an evocative quotation that would foreground the context of the chapter. The
360 + xiv pages book has nine chapters and I was able to identify an apt
quotation for all the chapters except the longest one, that is Chapter VI. That
chapter deals with his experience as Development Commissioner and with the
beauties and culture of Sikkim, then an Indian protectorate – and it was merged
into India as a full-fledged state during his tenure there. Thus the “I” in the
poem is Natarajan himself. I said the poetic lines could be shown as his own
creation, but, being a man of integrity, he insisted that my own authorship
should be acknowledged.

I
had applied for deputation to Sikkim in early 1970s, and it is about the same
time that Natarajan happened to have his tenure there. Though I never visited
Sikkim, at least I had spent months of time with someone, that too a senior IAS
officer, who worked there. Isn’t it a rather epiphanic or serendipitous intersection?
I had one more “connection” with Sikkim. I happened to know a Sikkim governor
well enough – V Rama Rao, who had been earlier a long-time elected MLC from the
Hyderabad graduates constituency. The well-respected leader and his well-respected
physician father Dr V Appa Rao were friends of my father; for they had happened
to live near Kaikalur, our native town, before they migrated to and settled
down in Hyderabad. So can anyone deny that I was a visitor of Sikkim, though
vicariously, of course?

No comments
:

Post a Comment

We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. प्रकाशित रचना से सम्बंधित शालीन सम्वाद का स्वागत है।